Complete Project Gutenberg John Galsworthy Works eBook

He was speaking very fast, very low, with an agitated
earnestness that surely could not be put on.
But suddenly muttering: “These people!”
he made her another of his little bows and abruptly
slipped away. The baroness was bringing up another
man. The chief thought left by that meeting
was: “Is that how he begins to everyone?”
She could not quite believe it. The stammering
earnestness of his voice, those humbly adoring looks!
Then she remembered the smile on the lips of the little
Pole, and thought: “But he must know I’m
not silly enough just to be taken in by vulgar flattery!”

Too sensitive to confide in anyone, she had no chance
to ventilate the curious sensations of attraction
and repulsion that began fermenting in her, feelings
defying analysis, mingling and quarrelling deep down
in her heart. It was certainly not love, not
even the beginning of that; but it was the kind of
dangerous interest children feel in things mysterious,
out of reach, yet within reach, if only they dared!
And the tug of music was there, and the tug of those
words of the baroness about salvation—­the
thought of achieving the impossible, reserved only
for the woman of supreme charm, for the true victress.
But all these thoughts and feelings were as yet in
embryo. She might never see him again! And
she certainly did not know whether she even wanted
to.

IV

Gyp was in the habit of walking with Winton to the
Kochbrunnen, where, with other patient-folk, he was
required to drink slowly for twenty minutes every
morning. While he was imbibing she would sit
in a remote corner of the garden, and read a novel
in the Reclam edition, as a daily German lesson.

She was sitting there, the morning after the “at-home”
at the Baroness von Maisen’s, reading Turgenev’s
“Torrents of Spring,” when she saw Count
Rosek sauntering down the path with a glass of the
waters in his hand. Instant memory of the smile
with which he had introduced Fiorsen made her take
cover beneath her sunshade. She could see his
patent-leathered feet, and well-turned, peg-top-trousered
legs go by with the gait of a man whose waist is corseted.
The certainty that he wore those prerogatives of
womanhood increased her dislike. How dare men
be so effeminate? Yet someone had told her that
he was a good rider, a good fencer, and very strong.
She drew a breath of relief when he was past, and,
for fear he might turn and come back, closed her little
book and slipped away. But her figure and her
springing step were more unmistakable than she knew.

Next morning, on the same bench, she was reading breathlessly
the scene between Gemma and Sanin at the window, when
she heard Fiorsen’s voice, behind her, say:

“Miss Winton!”

He, too, held a glass of the waters in one hand, and
his hat in the other.

“I have just made your father’s acquaintance.
May I sit down a minute?”